Table 1.
Byrne & Whiten's (1990) functional taxonomy of tactical deception adapted for human infants and toddlers.
| categories and subcategories (Byrne & Whiten 1990) | categories for human infants and toddlers | ages and examples from human infants and toddlers |
|---|---|---|
| concealment (of something from another) | ||
| by silencea | doing forbidden things quietly | no clear data |
| by hiding | passive hiding from other's view: waiting until moment parent leaves room to engage in forbidden activity. | 8/9 months waiting until other leaves room before rushing to forbidden activity: eating cheese plant, pulling curtains, etc. (Reddy 1991, 1998) |
| active hiding from other's view: turning the back or using body to screen forbidden activity or object from other's view. | 16 months turning back so that body screens forbidden object or activity from view (V. Reddy 1992, personal observation) 18 months going behind the settee to engage in forbidden activity (pulling at stitches) (Dunn 1988) | |
| verbal denial of misdemeanour or forbidden activity or object. | 2+ years ‘What have you got behind your back?’ ‘Nothing’; several examples (Newton et al. (2000)) | |
| by inhibiting interest in objecta | ||
| by ignoring | ignoring other's calls with stiffened and still body | 9 months/11 months pretending not to hear or pretending to be deaf when called (either because they are engrossed in a toy, or because doing something forbidden), but holding the body so still and not even turning to the sound, that it looks clearly motivated (Reddy 1991, 1998) |
| by hiding an object | 11 months unexpectedly hiding the ball under own legs in a game when expected to roll it back, looking at mother and laughing: not a prior game (Reddy 1998) | |
| distraction (of the other's attention away from a certain spatial locus thus attaining goal at that locus) | ||
| by calling | 17.5 months calling mother to look at dog in order to repeat playful throwing of gloves (Sully 1896 in Dunn 1988) | |
| by lookinga | ||
| by threata | ||
| by leadinga | ||
| by close-range behaviour | holding the other's eyes while engaging in forbidden activity. | 11 months/13 months staring the other out while performing the forbidden act in surreptitious manner; two examples (Reddy 1998) |
| by acquired signinga | ||
| attraction (of the other to a certain spatial locus and thus attaining goal at that locus) | ||
| by calling | fake crying (the spatial locus is the self) | 8 months/9 months using cries to ‘call’ the other, with the cries themselves identifiable as ‘fake’ with non-distressed ‘waiting for response’; several reports (Reddy 1991, 1998) |
| by lookinga | ||
| by leadinga | ||
| by close-range behaviour | fake laughing (the spatial locus is the self) | 6 months/7+ months laughing in an ‘artificial’ manner when overhearing other laughing, in ‘order to join in’ with them, be part of a group; several reports (Reddy 1991, 1998; V. Reddy 1986, personal observation) |
| creating an image (which conceals the agent's intentions and facilitates attainment of goal: it may be): | ||
| neutral (to appear of little or no significance to other, e.g. suppressing aggression or ‘smiles’) | feigning innocence/ignorance | 11 months when caught approaching forbidden soil in house plant, waving/scooping hand up, as if pretending not really going to touch it; repeated several times; single report (Reddy 1998) 30 months ‘What's happened to this? ‘I don't know.’ ‘I don't know who messed it (the tidy room) up.’; several reports (Newton et al. (2000)) 33 months pretending to clean paint off the TV (to be allowed to remain there) (Dunn 1988) |
| suppression of expression | 18 months suppression of smile in embarrassment at being seen unexpectedly by large audience or being asked to perform in front of audience (V. Reddy 1992, personal observation) | |
| affiliative (to appear to increase affiliation with other, e.g. offer of grooming or of hand before rapid change of action) | feigning offer (playful) of object or of self before withdrawing rapidly | 9+ months after evidence of successful offer and release skill, offering and rapid withdrawing of object; several examples around this age and later (Reddy 1991, 1998) 11 months on request to ‘come to me’ putting hands out to go, then backing off and laughing - a regular game, not shy, and not with new people only, also with mother, father, grandmother, ‘just pretending’; single example at this age (Reddy 1998) |
| feigning request (playful) of object, only to refuse it on receipt, then repeating immediately | 11 months requesting the juice while mother doing something else, then refusing it when given, and repeated a few times until mother noticed and saw he was looking at her with half smile; single example (Reddy 1998) | |
| pretend injury (seeking sympathy for self or privilege) | 18 months/24 months claiming foot injury ‘hurt, hurt’ following elder sibling's injury (V. Reddy 1992, personal observation); ‘I've got a bellyache’21 months ‘cack’ (lying down and gesturing, seeking bath (Dunn 1988) 11 months, 33 months pretend cry when told off (Dunn 1988; Reddy 1998) | |
| threatening (to appear to show a threat to the other) | feigning misdemeanour/non-compliance (playful/attention seeking) | 9 months pretending going to touch something, not actually wanting to touch it, flicking finger on hot tea cup, etc; several examples (Reddy 1998) 11 months pretending to take bite out of cardboard box; pretending to bash TV; ‘almost touching’ plant in friend's house (Reddy 1998); pretending to touch cooker (V. Reddy 1992, personal observation) 3 years ‘I'm going to write on the floor…only joking’ (Newton et al. (2000)) |
| feigning error (playful) | 11 months calling mother ‘daddy’ (Reddy 1998) 2.5 years ‘I dun wee wee here on the wall.’ ‘It's (the bedroom) there, it's there!’ (pointing to the bathroom and grinning); pointing to all the wrong drawers, asking where the pyjamas are, deliberately pretending not to know where they are, and avoiding the one mother was verbally indicating (Newton et al. (2000)) | |
| self competence | ‘didn't hurt’ bravado denial of pain following smacking for misdemeanour or injury upon doing forbidden act | 2.5 years ‘That didn't real hurt!’; several examples (Newton et al. (2000)) |
| ‘don't care’ bravado denial of desire for (desired) object; denial of fear for threatened (frightening) object | 2.5 years ‘I didn't want it anyway’; ‘I don't care, I been playing with it all day’ (Newton et al. (2000)) | |
| false boasts claiming possession of object or skill which isn't true | 3 years ‘I got one of them too’; several examples (Newton et al. (2000)) | |
| denial of error by pretending original action was different, by trying to alter current reality | 2.5 years ‘My other Daddy's upstairs’; ‘I said we'll pick her up later that's what I said’; ‘That were me making the noise (not the bowl)’ (Newton et al. (2000)) | |
| deflection (diverting a threat onto an innocent third-party: may include distraction but goes further to divert an attack, not just attention) | false blame | 2.5 years ‘Someone else, not me’; ‘Carol did it’; several examples (Dunn 1988; Newton et al. (2000)) 3 years false accusation of third person to justify self fantasy (Dunn 1988) |
| using a social tool (manipulating a third-party in order to deliberately influence the other) | ||
| tool deceiveda | ||
| target deceived | false promise about future act with an object (a physical rather than social tool) | 2.5 years ‘No…I won't do it again (if you give it to me)’ (Newton et al. (2000)) |
| tool and target deceived | false permission-assertion (by another authority figure) | 2.5 years ‘Daddy said I could’; ‘Dad said yes, but ask you as well’; ‘Mum lets me walk here’; several examples (Newton et al. (2000)) |
| counterdeception (reducing the success of the other's tactical deception; may or may not involve countering deception with deception)a | ‘before she tricks me, I'm going to trick her’ | |
a
No evidence available in this category for infants and toddlers.